Coatis, gibbons and mountain lions, oh my!

Kat with a barn owl at the Family Circus at Moorpark College's
 Exotic Animal Training and Management on her graduation day.

(Editor's note: While I get ready to go to my daughter's wedding in Rhode Island, my husband graciously volunteered to pinch hit for me, and reflect on his daughter's graduation.)

By Jim Skeen

In just about every great photo I have of my daughter, Kat, there is an animal. There’s one of her feeding a giraffe, another of her getting a kiss from a beluga whale. There’s one – actually several shots – of her with a llama.

When Kat poses for shots, she tends to be a bit stiff. In pictures with animals, you can see the joy she has in connecting with the creature.

At zoo camp in Busch Gardens,
Tampa Bay, Fla.

Growing up, there was also an animal around for her. There was Pinky, the beautiful calico cat; Chip, the cat with the pretty blue eyes; Dottie, the beautiful, but spacey Dalmatian; Star, the loving mutt; and Punky, the fat tabby. I think that she has never had a minute without an animal – if there was a time, it didn’t last long.

I have a theory that her love of animals was cemented at about two-and-a-half years old. We were relaxing in Golden State Park in San Francisco when a squirrel chasing after a prospective mate ran up Kat’s leg. The creature stopped about midway up her thigh and the two of them just froze looking at each other. The squirrel was probably paralyzed with fear, Kat stilled by wonderment of such a close encounter.

I bring this up because Kat  just recently graduated from the Exotic Animal Training and Management program at Moorpark College – a program known as “America’s Teaching Zoo.”

At graduation, Kat was joyful and was looking forward to the next phase of her life. I, on the other hand, was experiencing the bitter sweetness of the joy of her accomplishment mixed with the feeling of a connection being broken with her school.

Getting a kiss form a beluga whale at Sea World. San Antonio, Texas.

Like other long-term relationships, I can’t remember exactly remember when our relationship with Moorpark started – it just seems like it’s always been part of our lives. I think I was looking for something for the two of us to do and came across a listing for the school’s weekend openings for the public. This was at least 12 years ago.

Kat loved the idea of a school where you learned about animals. Shortly after we started our visits to Moorpark, Animal Planet ran a series called “Moorpark 24/7” about life at the school. Kat was hooked and she knew exactly where she was going to go to school.

A snow leopard cub at the LA Zoo.

To help her get into Moorpark, she started volunteering at the Los Angeles Zoo – first as a general volunteer, then a student volunteer, and then as an enrichment volunteer. She worked with a zookeeper, Dani, who was a Moorpark graduate herself. With Dani’s help, Kat not only got to work with a lot of animals, she also got some great quality moments – like holding snow leopard cubs and getting a kiss from a Sumatran rhino.

I started volunteering at the zoo as well. Over the years, I got to meet a lot of Moorpark students, who are required to put in work days at the L.A. Zoo as part of their course work. I kept thinking about how I couldn’t wait for Kat’s zoo days.

A quick history on Moorpark, or EATM, as we often call it: It was established as a major at Moorpark College in 1974.  Bill "Briz" Brisby, a professor at the college, started the program with one animal —"Kiska" the wolf, according to a history on the school’s website. The animal collection and the education program grew over time. The zoo now has about 200 different kinds of animals.

EATM graduates go into all kinds of animal work – training guide dogs, working with dolphins for the Navy, working at zoos and theme parks, working for conservation programs, and some even go into TV and film work.

Practicing behaviors with Kissu, the mountain lion.

The program is very popular and each year it gets more applicants than it has spaces for so there is a lottery drawing. Kat missed getting picked the first year she applied, but got in the next year.

There is a good reason why the Animal Planet was called “Moorpark 24/7” — the students are responsible for most of the care, feeding and well-being of those animals. Animals require constant attention and the students practically live at the school. Days off are rare and precious. If I wanted to see Kat, I had to go to EATM. I went to that school so often, I felt like I had an ownership stake in it.

Moorpark gave Kat great opportunities. She got to work with a skunk, a gibbon, a chattering lorry, a water buffalo, a coati, and, her favorite, a mountain lion named Kissu.

Kissu the mountain lion waits for dinner.

During her time with Kissu, he had to have surgery to remove a large mass from his stomach. Kat was part of a 24/7 watch on him afterward and spent much of her time helping with his recovery. For an all-too-brief time, Kissu rebounded, but a few days later his health sank again and he had to be euthanized.

At Kat’s graduation, one of the things she was recognized for was making Kissu’s last days quality ones.

On graduation day, I had one more walk around the zoo. I kept thinking about all the years we had talked about getting Kat into the program, about how she hoped her name would get picked in lottery, and how she would do. A decade-plus of planning and hoping was over and it seemed to have vanished in a flash. I felt a great sadness.

I will go back to Moorpark. I will bring Charlotte and any other grandchild that might come my way. Charlotte will be looking at the animals; I’ll be looking at the students, knowing what they had gone through to be where they are and the great moments they are having.  I will think of Kat and Kissu.

America's Teaching Zoo is open every weekend from 11am to 5pm. Admission is $5 for Adults, $4 for children and seniors.

Moorpark can be reached by taking the  118 freeway west to the Collins Exit. Turn right at the offramp stoplight and continue past the next stoplight (Campus Rd). Turn right into the second entrance past the stoplight, directly across from University Drive.  Turn to the right in the parking lot and continue right up the short hill to the right.

At left, is a book written about EATM.

Blue furry creatures and alligators

Mission accomplished! Having their photo taken with Grover.

We had to go to the zoo last weekend; there was no way around it. Grover was going to be there.

I'm not sure when my daughter's obsession with Grover began. I used to read her "The Monster at the End of This Book," and we watched inordinate hours of Sesame Street while I was waiting for her sister to be born. (It helped that I was the size of a beached whale, had sciatica and could do little else.)

But something about this affable blue creature just captured her imagination, and he was her favorite character on the Sesame block. When he was shunted aside for the obnoxious, screechy Elmo, my kid was bitter, even though her Sesame Street watching days were long past.

And then Elmo got his own feature, "Elmo's World." That really stung. One hardly saw Grover on the street anymore. It was hard to find blue furry monster merchandise that wasn't Cookie Monster.

My future son-in-law risked an international incident getting a SuperGrover stuffed doll out of a claw machine in a weird hamburger joint/bowling alley/arcade near Shannon, when we went to Ireland.

Charlotte holding hands with the SuperGrover
thief, AKA Daddy, and my daughter, Megan.

After feeding about 20 Euros in the machine and various close-calls, he gave up in disgust and stuck his arm up inside of the chute and grabbed the superhero. I didn't actually see this go down, but the owner was very suspicious, and the next thing I know, the kids are at my elbow hissing, "Let's go! Right now!" The proprietor followed us into the parking lot, doubtless to be sure we didn't steal anything else.

You can say what you want about the morality of this, but the guy got paid almost $50 for an 8-inch plush doll that probably cost a quarter, and we got a great travel story. I feel no remorse. And I believe that act of chivalry cemented the kids' relationship. "Faint heart never won fair maid," and all that crap.

Hey, you're not a cookie!

So when the Los Angeles Zoo announced that Grover and Cookie Monster would be there to promote the "Sesame Street Live" show coming to the Nokia Theater, where we were going on be on Mother's Day was never in doubt.

I didn't wait in the big long line, but did show up in time to see Megan and Charlotte get a big furry hug. My husband was doing his impression of Grover spoofing the Old Spice man, which you can see here. 

Megan was annoyed at the people in line who obviously didn't read the advertisement and thought Elmo was going to be there. "Elmo's coming, right?" they would ask, and my kid would snap, "No! Grover and Cookie Monster!"

That must have disappointed the scads of people wearing Elmo's simpering orange mug on their T-shirts.

The ambience at Reggie's Bistro belies its great food.

I knew we were going to be eating at the zoo, and had resigned myself to cardboard hamburgers. But during the last remodel, the LA Zoo put in Reggie's Bistro, right across the path from the infamous Reggie the Alligator's pen.

The food is pricy, but amazing. Everyone else had hamburgers, which looked great, and I had a grilled chicken sandwich with teriyaki sauce and a thick slice of pineapple on a high-quality bun, served with sweet potato fries,  and washed down with beer on tap. It was Amstel Light, but still....

Charlotte got apple juice in a plastic bottle shaped like a green alligator, called Reggie Juice. She held the bottle up, inclined the head, and said "Alligators say 'rawr.'" 

The giraffes enchanted onlookers.

The zoo is definitely cashing in on the public's fascination with Reggie, who was found swimming in Lake Machado in Harbor City. It took about a year and half to get him captured. Now there is a book about him, a website, and the zoo gift shop overflows with alligator merchandise.

The new elephant enclosure is wonderful. I can't show you a photo because they were moving too fast for me, but the changes at the zoo are considerable. We spent a long time watching the giraffes.

By the end of the day, Charlotte wasn't the only cranky one. My knee was killing me, and I would have given my MG for a ride to the car, Luckily, there wasn't anyone to take me up on that offer. 

Watching my kids chase after Charlotte while I rested my knee on a bench made me ever more impressed with those grandparents who must raise their grandkids. I don't think I would want to do that full-time. 

Getting a lift from Pop Pop. And this is why mommy's camera lens is always dirty.

Breakfast in bed? You must be a mom!

Me and my bridemaids 2010. No, I have no idea how I came to have such
beautiful children, either. Recessive genes, I guess.

I made myself cranberry-orange muffins today for Mother’s Day. They came from a box, and were pretty tasty. My kitchen is now way less of a mess than on past Mother’s Days, when my children decided to “cook” for me.

The American tradition of burned toast, raw in the middle pancakes, and over-cooked eggs is charming. Seeing those shiny little faces and hearing their cries of “Happy Mother’s Day, mommy!” just warms your heart, doesn’t it?

A minute later and mine were fighting over who should get credit for what.  “No, I made the toast!” “Mommy, she’s lying! She didn’t do hardly anything.” “No, you’re lying!”

My daughters and me at my Antelope Valley College graduation, 1997.
I think this was the very last time my younger daughter (in my cap and gown) was the same height as me.

And then you got up after the feast and saw how they laid waste to what was once your kitchen.

I jest, but I wouldn’t have traded breakfast in bed for anything. Well, maybe an expensive hotel’s room service….

My daughter with her Golden Ticket into the Mom's Club.

I realized the other day in the Hallmark store how my Mother’s Day card shopping has decreased. When my kids were little, they had two sets of grandparents, and I still had living grandparents, and I bought cards for the kids to send, also. So — mother cards,  grandmother cards, great-grandmother cards — it was about 12, if I remember correctly.

This year I only had to buy two.

I was issued the very first rewards card at the Hallmark store in the mall. Greeting cards have always been an expensive proposition in my house. From time to time I get those reward checks that only remind me how much I spend at the card store.

Can't you just imagine him
bringing Mom breakfast in bed?

My husband says he doesn’t remember what they did for his mother on Mother’s Day. She died when he was in his early twenties, so it’s not surprising. I like to think of him making her breakfast in bed, but he was the youngest, so he probably just got in the way.

Or maybe he brought her the paper, went and sat with her and chatted until the bigger kids got done in the kitchen. That sounds like him, because being companionable and cheerful are things he’s really good at.

I wish I could have met her to say “Thanks.”

But, the torch has passed, and today my daughter is the one being feted. I don’t know about breakfast in bed, but she got mimosas in bed yesterday. She posted a Facebook photo of herself later, drinking the champagne straight from the bottle, so I guess it went well.

If you were Charlotte's mother, you'd drink too...

My younger daughter posted that if that’s what Mother’s Days are like, she can’t wait. Sign her up.

My mother has been getting nothing but breakfast in bed for weeks, but the food is horrible, so I broke her out of the rehab hospital for an early Mother’s Day lunch yesterday.

Against all of our advice, my mother had her knee replaced, eight weeks before my daughter’s wedding. On the East coast, in Rhode Island.

We tried to convince her that it could wait, that she should tough it out until after we got back from the wedding, but she wasn’t having it. She met with a surgeon who said he’d have her up on her feet days after the surgery.

My mom and great-grandchild Charlotte.

I hate to call anyone a lying bastard, but here we are, five weeks later, and she’s still in the hospital. “Up on your feet” is not exactly the same as “walking.” I guess the recession is even hitting doctors, and with so many people losing their insurance, well, you just have to make the most of those Medicare patients.

“I just bounced back last time,” my mother told me. Uh-huh. The last time you had a knee replaced? You mean 20 years ago? That last time? When you weren’t in your 70s?

So, with 18 days until the wedding, we have to get her established at home and figure out how she’s getting to hair, nail, and doctor appointments, as well as find her a dress.

It used to be that I only had to worry about my daughters not taking my advice.

Happy Mother's Day to all!

Forget the dress; what about those cars?

"

My favorite aspect of the Royal Wedding: the 1969 Aston Martin DB6 Volante as getaway car.

I am not a gearhead. My husband calls me "the gearhead of the family," but every definition I have seen of that term includes "the ability to fix things mechanical," and right there, I fail the test.

I can change oil (although I don't), change sparkplugs, sparkplug wires, air filters and tires, but that's about it. I always wanted to take an automotive shop class, but I realized that life is too short for me to take classes in everything I am interested in.

Now, diagnosing noises, I'm pretty good at. I can identity loose valves, dry rocker arms, loose mufflers, aging fan belts, bad timing, and wheel bearings in need of repacking. That's more than most girls, but it won't get me far when I'm broken down on the side of the road.

My best friends in terms of auto repair are a wad of cash and AAA with unlimited towing. At least I have one of the two; I'll let you guess which.

A front view of the post-wedding trip around the Mall.

But the passion for cars and things mechanical part of the gearhead description fits me to a T. So I guess I'm a gearhead wannabe. I wish I knew how to fix cars, although I'm not very fond of getting dirty.

But you know you have gearhead tendencies when you don't get terribly excited about Prince William's wedding to Kate Middleton until you find out they drove away in a 1969 Aston Martin DB6 Volante.

Yep, that Aston Martin, one similar to James Bond's.

It belongs to the father of the groom (Prince Charles, in case you haven't been paying attention), and it has been reengineered to use bio-fuel made from waste from the English winemaking process. Didn't know England made wine? Join the club. I'll have to ask my future son-in-law the oenologist what he thinks of British wine.

Since he's heavily into French Bordeaux, I can only guess his answer. I am fond of British beer, that's all I care about.

My response to the Royal Wedding was like women who don't know a thing about football, but don't want to be left out of Super Bowl festivities, so they pick a team based on the team's colors, uniforms (or "outfits," depending on how really lame the woman is), or mascots.

The Royal Wedding was an English patriot's dream: English dress designers (Sarah Burton), composers (Sir Charles Hubert Parry), hymns ("Jerusalem," with lyrics by William Blake, among others) locations (Westminster Abbey), and of course cars.

What anti-Church-of-England poet Blake would have thought about his poem being turned into a patriotic hymn is anyone's guess.

Those who don't have gold horse-drawn carriages in their garage like QE II does, arrived in limos or Range Rovers.

Kate Middleton arrived at Westminster Abbey in the Queen's 1977 Rolls Royce Phantom VI, a Silver Jubilee gift from the British automobile industry. The claret and black colored vehicle has recently been restored after rioting students splashed paint on it while Prince Charles and that woman were inside.

Queen Elizabeth's Rolls Royce Phantom VI.

When the queen uses it, the Rolls Royce hood ornament is replaced by one depicting St. George, the patron saint of England, slaying the dragon. The Queen Mum had a hood ornament of Britannia holding a sceptre.

 I am thrilled that Kate's dress had long sleeves, and commentators were saying it was trend-setting. They made it sound like wedding dress designers were racing to their drawing boards to sketch fashionable dresses that older and more modest brides could love. If so, I can only say hallelujah, and it's about time.

Dowdy mothers and grandmothers of the
 bride. The photo doesn't do the Queen's
yellow dress justice.

Sadly, it comes too late for me. You can read all about my search for a non-sleelevess dress here. 
I'm engaged in the same fruitless search now for a dress with sleeves for my daughter's wedding. Do designers have any idea how many women should not be showing their arms in public? Under any circumstances?

I have a choice: I can wear a "mother-of-the-bride" suit in some disgusting pastel like the Queen (seriously, was that the brightest screaming yellow you've ever seen?), or I can frighten the congregation by displaying my ugly upper arms.

Looking for dresses with sleeves now is like looking for clogs and platforms in the 1980s. Don't think I didn't try; at 5'1," I don't want to wear ballerina flats. I feel like Linda Hunt in them.

So, I am looking forward to being able to buy a cocktail dress with sleeves. I'm not counting on it, but it would be a welcome change.

My husband was thrilled about the Aston Martin getaway, and it prompted him to write "All the best people leave their weddings in British sports cars" on Facebook, since we left our reception in my MG.

Of course my car is hundreds of thousands of pounds cheaper than Will and Kate's ride, but never mind. I just can't imagine how she got that humongous train jammed into that little car. There was no was I could get my dress into my MG, I left in jeans,

Eggs, tantrums, and royal weddings

Charlotte's Easter basket

So the bunny with the gentle smile, and more candy than one should reasonably give a two-year-old awaits my granddaughter Charlotte today.

To be fair, there are also three books, so I am not completely giving the basket over to tooth-destroying sugar treats. Hey, she brushes with her Thomas the Tank Engine toothpaste and her Elmo toothbrush.

It seems strange to not be doing more for the holiday, but Lotte will stop by with her entourage to say "hi," pick up her basket, and be on her sugar-high way. And that's enough.

Charlotte at her second birthday party,
with her "Pincess Fog" cake.

I complained in print for years about wanting to kidnap other people's children for Easter egg hunts, egg-dyeing sessions, and frilly dress shopping. This year, although I have a granddaughter of my own, I am buried under a mountain of ungraded papers, a mother recovering from knee-replacement surgery, travel plans for my daughter's Rhode Island wedding, and my other daughter's problems with trying to give Charlotte a baby sister.

It was enough that I got to raid the Easter aisles and compile a basket for my blonde imp, although the last thing she needs is candy.

It feels like she has been a "terrible two" for years. The strong-willed behavior coupled with her increasing awareness of the unfairness of life has left us all exhausted, as she throws temper tantrum after another and refuses to nap.

But, oh, the sunny little smiles and heart-melting sweetness that come out after the stormy behavior, make up for her outbursts (I think). She is very solicitous and worried about other people ("What's wrong, Mom Mom?" she asks), and genuinely wants to help.

Prince William and Kate Middleton. 

This spring is a crazy time. We have another royal wedding this week, and everyone is waxing nostalgic about Prince Charles and Lady Diana, reflecting on the marriage that began with such promise and ended tragically. Actually, as we know now, Charles stood at the altar professing undying love and devotion to his socially suitable bride while he was in love with someone else less suitable. 

Speaking of Camila, have you seen the Graham Norton promos for the royal wedding? Hysterical! He says that Camila has already picked out the frock for the nuptials, a lovely blue off-the-shoulder number, and then shows a racehorse wearing a blue blanket.

It's mean, yes, since Camila can't help not being as pretty as Diana, but that's what she gets.

So Charles and Di were doomed from the start, which hopefully will not be the case with Prince William and Kate. I'm not as heavily invested in this, since it's like other people's children getting married, but I may DVR it.

I got up in the middle of the night last time in my San Francisco apartment, drinking endless cups of coffee and participating in the communal flush that dropped water tables all around the globe. Now I shudder when I look at Diana's dress. It was so 80s.

For a look inside a not-quite-arranged marriage, but a instance of someone marrying up the social ladder, read "Snobs," by Julian Fellowes. He's the man who wrote "Gosford Park" and "Downton Abbey," and his description of the in's and out's of the British aristocracy will make you even more grateful you are an American.

I heard on NPR that between 1890 and 1910, forty percent of the English aristocracy married rich American heiresses in order to shore up crumbling estates and family bank accounts, since any fortune a single woman had went to her husband.

A key plot point in "Downton Abbey" is that the American's wife's money is getting entailed away from her children to some distant cousin of her husband, thanks to the byzantine British inheritance laws.

These daughters of Astors and Vanderbilts and other hyper-wealthy American industrialists were called "dollar princesses" and included Diana Spencer's great grandmother, Frances Work.

I was saying last week that I believe that if Princess Di had lived, Elton John would have asked her to be the godmother of his new baby, and yesterday, I found out who the real godmother is: Lady GaGa. Elton said that under all the make-up and crazy outfits is a plain girl who loves her mother and dad.

Elton and his partner are of course, invited to the royal wedding. And speaking of Elton John.....

Elton who????

Flowering dogwood and hush puppies

The brick gateway to Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, GA, founded in 1850.

It may be odd, but my family spends a lot of time in graveyards.

The first stop on any family vacation is a trip to the local cemetery. We go to outdoor movies at Hollywood Forever, tromp through the myriad types of final resting places in Colma, CA, and I have a long list of famous writers, poets, musicians and actors whose graves I want to visit.

When my kids were little, we hit the burying grounds in Jacksonville, Oregon, a National Historic Place, (yes, the whole town), and spent a few hours wandering around. Then we went into the museum, and were able to read about the town's residents whose headstones we had just seen.

The marker of Margaret Mitchell Marsh and her husband, other Mitchells are on the back side. Devotees have left Mardi Gras beads, pennies and rocks, a custom adopted from Jewish funeral tradition.

So when I go to Atlanta, I knew that I wanted to see where Margaret Mitchell was buried. Not that I am such a big fan, but Gone With the Wind is iconic Americana, and I read Peachtree Road, by Anne Rivers Siddons. In the book, a young women has sex on the Pulitzer Prize winner's grave, and she and her friend speculate about how shocked the dead woman would have been about it.

Jasper Newton Smith oversaw work on his own mausoleum built in 1906. The artist gave him a cravat, and Smith, who hated neckties, made him chisel it off. He moved into the space in 1918. 

The Richards mausoleum, built in the 1880s, is the final resting place of Robert Richards (1830-1888), who opened the first bookstore in Atlanta before going into banking. In the background is the skyline of Atlanta.

What I didn't expect was that Mitchell would rest in such a lovely Victorian garden cemetery, and that it would be so exclusive. It's not that only the rich rest there, because there are plenty of paupers as well, but rather that all the plots were sold by 1884.

According to Phil Hulst, the volunteer in the gift shop, there are still about 15 interments a year at Oakland, usually in family plots, although the City of Atlanta owned some of the spaces.

Retired educator Phil Hulst volunteers
at the Oakland Cemetery Gift Shop.

There are many distinct areas in the cemetery, since the South was still segregated. There is an African American and Jewish section, as well as a potter's field and an area for Confederate soldiers, with rows and rows of identical headstones under the shade of flowering dogwood trees.

In the center of the cemetery lies the Lion of Atlanta, a huge stone lion with a spear in his side and the legend "Unknown Confederate Dead." It was donated by the Atlanta Ladies Memorial Association to honor Civil War casualties.

The whole place is beautiful in the spring, a riot of flowers, flowering dogwood, huge magnolia trees (not flowering yet), and shrubs. It is quiet, even though it is bordered by a main thoroughfare on one side. Hulst tells a woman who is slightly scandalized by the fact that Oakland is the site of many weddings, that it is a Rural Garden Cemetery, and that Victorians saw cemeteries more like parks.

Hulst is quick to point out that these folks who choose to be married in Oakland are not goths, or people into the occult. Actually, they are probably more interested in history.

–––

The Lion of Atlanta, erected in 1894 to honor the
Unknown Confederate Dead.

I wandered around for about four hours, using the cellphone tour of the African American sections, and admiring the foliage and the variety of markers. I saw many headstones carrying symbols I had only seen in books, like Stories in Stone: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography. 

The marker of Willie Wayne Farris,
aged 22 months. The stump is a symbol
of a life cut short, the dove of purity and peace.

I was sweating in the warm spring air from the humidity. I leaned up against a stone wall, and pulled my hand away quickly. It has been years since I lived in Texas, and I had completely forgotten about chiggers, those obnoxious, almost microscopic bugs that are everywhere in the South.

Beat, I decided to go across the street for dinner before catching a cab back to my hotel. The Six Feet Under pub was jumping on this Friday night, with a huge selection of draft beer and funky decorations. I sat at a counter that had a view of Oakland. The fried shrimp basket was great, and the waitress was surprised when I asked to substitute hush puppies for their freshly made potato chips. 

"You already get four hush puppies. You want eight?" she said incredulously. I told her that where I came from, we don't have hush puppies, and I need to get my fill while I'm here.

I'd love to go back, because Oakland does a variety of events at the Cemetery. "Tunes from the Tombs," a weekend of music and spirits, is a fundraiser for the Historic Oakland Foundation in May, and "Sunday in the Park: A Victorian Festival" where people come dressed in period costume is in October. Halloween weekend, there are tours, where volunteers dressed as people buried at the cemetery tell visitors about their lives. Go to www.oaklandcemetery.com for more information.

The Six Feet Under pub, with Oakland Cemetery headstones in the foreground. The shrimp
and hush puppy basket is amazing. (Apologies to Huell Howser.)

Atlanta from the 31st floor

The view from my suite at the Marriott, and my soon-to-be-defunct MacBook. Not only do I have a sentimental attachment to this particular one, they don't make the black MacBooks anymore

I was checking into the Atlanta Marriott Marquis this week when the desk clerk told me that since I had asked for a king-size bed and they were all out, she was upgrading me to a suite.

Truth be told, I didn't give a damn whether I had a king-size bed or not; I just said that because I was traveling alone. One person, one bed. Makes sense, right? Oh, holy hell, this room was fabulous. I could have had a party, except I left my friends and my lover at home.

Of course God (or Spirit, Yahweh, Goddess, the Force, the Universe, etc) gives with one hand and takes away with the other, so the last day of my trip my MacBook died, taking every photo I shot of the beautiful Victorian-garden Oakland cemetery. I'm going to try to get them back and do a whole other column on that, but not today.

My office in the suite. A wet bar is opposite the desk.

I was in Atlanta for the 2011 Conference on College Composition and Communication, so luckily my computer didn't die until the last day, because I needed it. The hotel, which is akin to LA's Bonaventure in size and scope, was crawling with decidedly unfashionable people reading books in the corners when they weren't chatting with colleagues or drinking over-priced beer in the lounge.

I love my fellow composition teachers, but really, we are a dowdy lot. If you thought corduroy jackets with patches on the sleeves were something you only saw the "The Paper Chase," think again. Mid-calf flowered skirts and sensible separates are apparently de rigueur for the professorial set. Oh, and eyeglasses, lots of eyeglasses, of course. All that reading we do weakens our eyes.

A public art project brought in statuary from Zimbabwe
that line a hallway at Hartsfield-Jackson airport.

The airlines probably did a land-office business in overweight baggage charges on our return flights. The publishers were handing out review copies of textbooks, the National Council of Teachers of English were selling books, and I took reams of notes. (I could have just said the NCTE, but that also stands for National Center for Transgender Equity, so one must be careful.)


I was lucky, I stopped acquiring books at just the right time; my case was 36 pounds on the scale in L.A., and exactly 50 (the limit) on the way back. Only 14 pounds is pretty good. To steal an expression from Alcoholics Anonymous, when it comes to books, "One is too many, and a 100 is not enough." Once you start, it is difficult to stop.

Atlanta was lovely, and the people were all so nice. (Except the taxi drivers, I only had one who was a native speaker. The rest were surly foreigners.) Beginning at the airport, Atlanta was charming all over. There is an art exhibit in the Transportation Mall, "Zimbabwe: A Tradition in Stone." It was my reward for not getting on the subway tram to baggage claim. I had to walk forever, but at least it was interesting. By the way, if an airport has gone to the trouble of building a subway, take it. That means it is a loooong way to baggage claim.

The terrace seats restaurant at Turner Field. I can guarantee I'll never sit here again.

Turner Field.

The first night I was there, one of publishing companies sponsored a buffet dinner and open bar at Turner Field, the home of the Atlanta Braves. They have an arcade-like area near the entrance with electronic batting cages and a pitching game that tells you the MPH of your fastball. Needless to say, this non-athletic teacher didn't try it; I don't like to play games I suck at. I killed at the in-flight trivia game, but baseball? Not so much.

Statue of Hank Aaron near the entrance to Turner Field.

My head started playing Tim McGraw's "I Like it, I Love It," where the song's persona is complaining that he's so wrapped in his new girlfriend, "I ain't seen the Braves play a game all year..."

I can see why people like ballparks. This one had a museum, and was very pretty, but once you're there, you gotta watch baseball. That's the downside, as far as I am concerned.

The next afternoon, I caught a cab to Oakland Cemetery and spent about four hours wandering around the huge mausoleums and crypts of Atlanta's famous and rich. That's my idea of being outdoors.

I went, of course, to see the grave of Margaret Mitchell, author of "Gone With the Wind," but ended up seeing so much more. The cemetery, which had all its plots sold by 1884, is segregated, with whites, blacks, Confederate soldiers, and Jews each in their own area.

Phil Hulst, the volunteer on duty in the visitor's center, is a retired educator with a lovely Southern accent. He told me that this year is the 75th anniversary of the publishing of "Gone With the Wind," and next month will be full of celebrations like this. That figures, I'm always a day late and a dollar short. Hulst directed me to the African American section, where a grant has helped them do a free cellphone tour.

You dial a number, then punch in the number on the sign in front of the grave. The narration tells stories, like that of Dr. Roderick D. Badger, a prominent black dentist who was the son of a white plantation owner and a black slave. His work became so popular with both races, that white dentists banded together and tried to get a law passed to prevent him from practicing.

On the way back to the hotel, my one English speaking cabbie, a young black man, expressed surprise that I could spend all afternoon in a graveyard, I explained the African American Voices project and how inspiring it was. He was intrigued and said he had lived in Atlanta his own life and didn't know anything like that existed.

I only wish I could have seen more of Atlanta: it seems like a very cool place. I especially would like to have that suite back....